Color motion pictures are often made by shooting the action with a film camera, converting the images to digital form, computer processing the digital images, and then scanning the processed images back onto film for release. It would be advantageous to have a practical electronic color video camera that could directly shoot the action to obtain color video from which good quality color motion picture film could ultimately be produced, but this has not yet been achieved. A major reason is that the expensive high quality lenses used in motion picture film cameras have optical characteristics and requirements that are not readily adaptable to electronic video cameras. A 24 frames per second progressively scanned color video camera for electronic film origination has become available. It is a three-sensor camera that must use lenses designed for television cameras, and cannot achieve the image quality that is obtainable with the high quality lenses used in motion picture film cameras.
It is among the objects of the present invention to devise an electronic color video camera that can utilize the types of high quality lenses that are used in motion picture color film cameras.